Occasional thoughts, reflections and writings.

Why Write This?

My fourth novel is out. Titled “PIPELINE,” it breaks away from my previous Dinkel Island Series, moving to the Virginia mountains. It features events, tensions, and pressures of a community impacted by construction of a natural gas pipeline.

Some have asked, “Why did you write about this? Why didn’t you just stay with your series? I’ve been waiting to see what happens next with the characters in your other books. What gives?”

Good questions.

I wrote it because the situation intrigues me. Decades ago I did a sociology project in college studying life in a remote Blue Ridge mountain community. Life there was centered in shared history and primary face-to-face relationships. The people had always been self-sufficient, providing for their basic needs through local interdependence.

At the time of my study, however, the basic needs for food, clothing, employment, education and health services were supplied from outside their community in…